


Rebellion

by gretazreta (Greta)



Category: 13th Century CE RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-09
Updated: 2010-07-09
Packaged: 2017-11-19 11:55:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/573001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greta/pseuds/gretazreta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Where there is hatred, let me sow love," he said.<br/>Written for Real Women Fest in 2010 - can be found here: http://realwomenfest.livejournal.com/877.html</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rebellion

13th Century RPF, St. Clare of Assisi, "Rebellion"

The only time she felt his hands upon her was when she knelt before him, and he cut her hair. His hands were strong, but gentle, separating each strand and cutting it all away. Her hair fell to the ground in a swathe of red-gold, like the mass of embroidering silk at the bottom of her sewing chest that she'd meant to tidy on Saturday, untangle it all and make it straight. Instead she'd found herself walking from her home, from the ownership of a fond father, walking from her wardrobe of gowns, her jewels, her books, walking out onto the street after the holy man who spoke of a God's love more compelling than that of any of the young men who had sought her hand for their own.

 _Where there is hatred, let me sow love_ , he had said, and Clare had felt curtains drawn back on the light of the world, blinding, harsh, illuminating, revealing her own life as distractions, vanities. _What is it, to be a man?_ he asked. _And what, to be a woman?_ she wondered. And the question led her from her door, into the rough dust of the street, barefoot. To Francis. To God.

When he was finished, his hand brushed over her head, and touched her cheek, and his eyes were dark and warm, and he was father, brother, lover, all things. When he helped her to her feet, her head felt light, and the rough linen of her robe felt clean, and smelt of cinnamon.

And that was the beginning.

And through the years, there was work, and lots of it, and the harsh hot sun of San Damiano. Her own hands, once white and soft, were brown and roughened. She could pull a plow, unaided, and spend the day bent over weeds in the gardens. There was work, and song, and the face of God in the bright stars of Assisi in the long, still nights. 

When he visited, in later years, the younger ones came running to her in the fields.

"He is come, he is come," they would call, and "Francisco, he is come," as if she could not see by the glow in their faces. They would eat together in the shade of the evening, bread and olives. He would laugh at her, and call the young ones her "Poor Clares," but his eyes approved her, still had the ability to warm her, despite the years between them. He only angered her when he left again, a slighter figure now, worn down by the years and miles of his journeys, preaching to the people and the birds as if they were one and the same. She heard a story that he had tamed a wolf, and thought perhaps that she was like that wolf, one who sought to challenge him at each turn, confounded and tamed by his gentleness and faith. 

_Why must you journey?_ she asked him, and he smiled.  
 _Why must you stay?_ he asked, rhetorician, and gestured towards where the young women were sewing quietly under the olives, with young Sister Isabelle reading from Corinthians. She had her own work here, her own devotion. Her own life's work, not his: women's work, and lots of it.  
 _It's nearly harvest_ , she replied, and his smile was as bright as the first day she had seen him.

Later still, towards the end, he had trouble with his eyes, and with the stigmata of his hands, and she walked barefoot to the spring and brought back clean water to bathe them. He couldn't see her, but she thought perhaps he never had, or only the good in her, not the impatience, not the yearning, not her rebellious soul. Blind, his gaze turned away inside himself. To his God. He whispered, "Bene, Chiara," and sang psalms to himself in a breathy, tired voice. _He is not long with us_ , she thought, and she was right.

On the night of his passing, she walked, half-blind herself with tears, into the moonlight. _You have forsaken us,_ she prayed, angrily. You take Your Son from us again and leave us bereft. You leave **me** bereft. 

The breeze was balmy and soft: it was a beautiful night, and the stars so close that she felt that she could reach up with both hands and pull the dark aside, to see the brightlit Face on the other side.

 _Why_ , she whispered. _Why do You test us so?_

There was no answer but the wind, and after a few minutes, she turned back to the house.

There, on the gutters, on the windowsills, on the line of the roof, white in the moonlight, were the birds of Assisi, roosting quietly on the house, a hundred, a thousand even, covering the roof, covering the fences, like snow in summer.

The bells chimed out, then, and the birds lifted, whirled upwards in a rush of wind, taking him home, and the breeze ran its fingers through her cropped grey hair, as Francis had, so many years ago.

And he was gone.


End file.
